2015/03/31

Sick life.

This comic was difficult to execute. Not because I've forgotten how to draw, but because I've become fearful of posting anything online anymore without considering the impact it would have on me finding a job in the tech industry. Or the game industry. Any industry. This comic is not up to anyone's standards, not even mine.

But what's different about this comic is that it's the full embodiment of how I felt. I felt sick. wasted. Burned out from working in front of computers, worrying over other people's ideas and methods for executing those ideas. I was eating at one of my favorite diners whose prices have been forced to go up because of the changing social climate in San Francisco. I feel stupid for continuing to live here without a plan. I have no plan. But I wanted this breakfast because old habits are fun.

I found myself outside of my head while I was sick and wanted to express that detachment. I was finally done with color correcting, editing text, erasing pencil marks, finishing the inking of lines. Correct anatomical proportion went out the window, and I didn't censor any of the very real, dark, stupid and pedestrian thoughts that passed through my mind as I wrote this comic.

This comic won't land me a job. It will be a deterrent. I wasted more money not posting it online when I should've posted it online, so it hasn't done me any favors financially in the past, nor will it in the future.

So why have I decided to post it? Because it reminds me that I am a messy, imperfect, human being. I am not a robot. I am not efficient or well designed. I can not spit out code or mathematical equations at a satisfactory pace and I was not created to be made an example of an elite superpower. I'm just a human.

I'll work as hard as I can and I'll make stuff, even if I'm sick. But I allow my imperfections to guide me in design decisions. Not every time, but in times when all other strategies have failed.

Take this comic for example. As I post this to the web site, I could have cleaned up all the pencils. I could have edited out the coffee stain on top of the page. I could have made sure all the lines were penciled and accounted for. But I left all the imperfections in because it fit the narrative of the comic. This makes sense in my mind.